


Heart Beating Like Music

by NeverBackDown001



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Love Confessions, Song fic, turnin my life around, you are my everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:08:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29436573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverBackDown001/pseuds/NeverBackDown001
Summary: 'Love every minute you got me in it'Kaleidoscope-A Great Big WorldSong Fics'When words stop, music begins'
Relationships: Ellie Bishop/Nick Torres
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. You're My Kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> Kaleidoscope 
> 
> A Great Big World.

_My life My life was black and white and I believed it I believed it My eyes My eyes looked at the world but couldn't see it I couldn't see it_

They loved each other like no-one else could. Like a match and matchbox, doomed to burn, but also doomed to burn so brightly,giving warmth to those who needed. They gave warmth and light to each other. 

They where each other's hero's. Nick was her hero. He was her everything. He was the one thing that she would ever need in life. Her beacon in the endless swaths of darkness. The light to pick her up and guide her from the shadows and into the real world. She would never be able to be without him again because he was the sole reason her heart beat any more. 

Every time she looked at him, his dark, promising eyes and fire that burned inside him. He made her think outside of the black and white she had grown to fit into. He was the color in her dark. 

_You're like the thing that makes the universe explode_   
_Into the colors of a world I've never known_   
_You keep turning, keep turning my life around_

He loved her. More than anything he could ever love in the world. Her bright eyes full of this life he could never be able to repeat for himself. A smile that lit up the world while it was stuck in the past. He had never seen something so beautiful. She was his hero. The one person he could trust with anything and everything. He felt out of place in this cruel world, the piece of the puzzle that would never fit. 

She let him believe, let him to believe that he would fit. Because she was the reason he did. 

Every time their hands touched, Nick was certain that the spark would fly out of control and into a wildfire, consuming everything in it's path. It terrified her because he knew, he knew that he gave her the key to his heart. She could simply walk in, light it all on fire and walk out with a smirk on her pretty face. But she wouldn't. Because he trusted her with his life, his soul and heart. 

_Violets and purples_   
_Diamonds and circles_   
_You're my kaleidoscope_   
_I love every minute_   
_You've got me in it_   
_You're my kaleidoscope_

As they stood just inches from one another, breaths mingled in the cool night air, their eyes locked on one another, they could feel their hearts beat so loudly in their chests. His eyes, dark and mysterious, wrapped in one mystery to another. Filled with a unstable amount of emotion sometimes, or devoid of it all together. Her eyes, green, bright in the dark of the D.C night, filled with everything from joy to rage. Like the pull of an ocean's tide. Unstable. 

What could they say that already hadn't been repeated in their heads a hundred times? Every time he saw her, he swore he fell a little more in love with her. And as much as it scared him, he wanted to touch her, kiss her in the broken places. Not fix her, but make her whole again. 

What could she say that would ever really complete the hole in her chest. His smile, made her rethink everything she had ever done. Because every moment after this one, she craved to be spending with him. In his arms, helping him out of the hole he had fallen in and seemingly can't get out of. She won't fix him. But she will make him whole again. 

_Hey la nah nah oh_   
_You keep turning, keep turning my life around_   
_Hey la nah nah oh_   
_You keep turning, keep turning my life around_

From the moment of meeting, even if a gun leveled at his face, he knew. He knew that Ellie was something special. Not the average girls he slept around with. A kind of beauty you didn't find anywhere. But in the corners of the earth, hiding because of the outstretched hands. Nick knew because he had never met anyone like her in a long, long time. And when that kind of girl slipped through the fingers, everything seemed to go to shit afterwards. 

How could someone ever let this kind of girl go? What kind of man would ever let her slip through careless fingers that hadn't held onto her as tight as he promised himself he would? 

She made him rethink every choice he had ever made. Every girl he had broken and every time he ran away because he was a damn coward. 

_Tonight_   
_The stars are in your eyes and I surrender_   
_I surrender_   
_Tonight_   
_Our hands against the wind, we are forever_   
_We are forever_

He was the kind of guy that you didn't know if you could trust at first. Ellie had seen that. But once delving deeper behind a stony facade and sharp pinpricks of walls that he kept up, she knew. She knew that he wasn't the kind of guy to break hearts without reason. No, he was the kind to hold you tight because he simply wanted to. 

She loved him more than Jake, more than Qasim, more than any previous boyfriend she had. She did love them, but not like him. 

As she stood in front of him, eyes locked onto each other, on the chilly autumn evening, her toes where cold, curled in her soft boots, but she couldn't care less because her heart was on fire. The kind of bonfire on beaches with college kids drinking and making out in the dark places of the beach. 

"I love you." She simply whispered, the words slipping from her tougne, the words that she had wanted to say for years. And when she did, a hundred pounds of infinite weight was lifted from her chest and thrown aside. 

His eyebrows shot up and he moved closer, she could smell the woodsmoke of his jacket and the pine needles that stuck to his jeans. She could count every little imperfection in his perfect face, the faint splash of dark spots over the bridge of his symterical nose. 

"I love you." He whispered back, like it was a secret. A secret that needed to be said because it couldn't be locked down any longer than it already had been. 

_It all looks better when I see it with you here_   
_You keep turning, keep turning my life around_

Soft kisses, lips moving against each other, hands wrapped around each other, holding one another with a tightness, like if they let go, they'll fall and they don't want to fall. But they already have. Deep into an endless kind of love that no-one can ever think to shake. Hearts burning bright in their chests. A fire that won't ever dim. A fire that can't be put out. 

They where the color in each other's darkness, the life that they needed to fill the endless void in their chests. 


	2. Stuck in the Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silence 
> 
> -Marshmello and Kahlid

_Yeah, I'd rather be a lover than a fighter (fighter)_   
_'Cause all my life, I've been fighting_   
_Never felt a feeling of comfort, oh_   
_And all this time, I've been hiding_   
_And I never had someone to call my own, oh nah_   
_I'm so used to sharing_   
_Love only left me alone_   
_But I'm at one with the silence_

The waves of silence and anguish that drowned her. The reminders of everything she's been through the past couple of years reminding her in one hellish nightmare. The mutilated faces of her friends, the faces changing. From Qasim, to her brother and childhood friends, to Nick, McGee and Jimmy. The blood seeping through the carpet and the life drained from their once lively eyes. 

"No." She sobbed as she grazed their faces with her fingertips, afraid that if she touches them, that the nightmare will continue. Or that it will be real, a nightmare brought to life as she peers over the bodies over her family and friends. 

Nick's face hurt the worst. His dark eyes wide open, staring up at her, bloodied streaks down his face, his mouth slightly open. A silent accusation that she is the one responsible for his untimely death. Deep down, she knows he's right. Ellie ruins everything and everyone she touches. Jake, Qasim, Boyd and Richard. And all of the boyfriends in between. 

How could anyone not put two and two together? 

_I found peace in your violence_   
_Can't tell me there's no point in trying_   
_I'm at one, and I've been quiet for too long_   
_I found peace in your violence_   
_Can't tell me there's no point in trying_   
_I'm at one, and I've been silent for too long_

Jake. When working at the NSA, they simply clicked. He was a handsome lawyer and she was a nerdy analyst. He was just a few years older than her, cute and clean shaven. She had taken a liking to him almost as soon as she met him. They had dated for almost two years then married. She had been recruited right out of college and was the youngest analyst there. But Jake had made her feel special. 

Then she had been handed the opportunity to go and work for NCIS. To chase and catch the bad guys, not work from behind a computer screen. That choice had made an uneven shift in their marriage. She and Jake had almost been married two years when she became a probie alongside McGee and Tony. So she tried, tried and make their marriage work because she loved him. Loved him to death. She wanted a life with him. 

One that she would never get. 

When he had cheated, a piece of her heart, one that belonged to Jake indefinetly, split in a thousand different kind of pieces. And when she signed the divorce papers, she took off her ring and set it in a lock box. She wouldn't throw it away, but keep it as a reminder of what happened. Of her past, and what she could have done to save the marriage that was doomed when she took the NCIS job. And the piece of her heart that would always be Jakes. 

_I've been quiet for too long_   
_I've been quiet for too long_   
_I found peace in your violence_   
_Can't tell me there's no point in trying_   
_I'm at one, and I've been quiet for too long_

Qasim. Sweet, Qasim. When they met(She had been convinced he was a terrorist) she thought he was cute. The kind of scruffy cute, with his beard and bright blueish brown eyes that always seemed to change. She believed in him when he begged, begged and pleaded that he wasn't like his brother, like the people that had taken over his war torn country. He only wanted peace in this dark, dank world they all thrived in. 

Not long after her divorce, he had been there for her. Helped her through the hard-bitten times, when she simply wanted to run back to Jake, run back to what she knew and once loved. He had made sure she slept and ate. And it was a kind of debt she didn't know how to repay. And when she had asked him, his answer had been simple. 

"Take me out to dinner, just you and me El." He smiled, his eyes bright with a kind of light she hadn't seen before. He was on his way to become a citizen of the Untied States, and she helped him with some of the homework when she had her rough nights, it had taken her mind off of things. 

And months, months after dating, when he proposed, she had declined. No. It wasn't even a full year since she signed those divorce papers. No. She couldn't because she was still healing, not because she didn't love him, but because her heart couldn't do that again, not yet anyways. 

Seeing his body be torn by bullets, the one thing that he wished never to be killed by, had made Ellie's heart feel like it had been trampled by a stampede of bulls and goats. 

So she found the engagement ring he had given her, simply, sweet and him. And put it in the lockbox aside her wedding ring. A reminder to never believe in what her hearts said because her heart was wrong. She was wrong to believe that this time her shot at love again was good and real. 

_I've been quiet for too long_   
_I've been quiet for too long_   
_I found peace in your violence_   
_Can't tell me there's no point in trying_   
_I'm at one, and I've been quiet for too long_

Boyd and Richard. They weren't important enough to really put a damper on her heart. No. But it was a painful reminder that her heart wasn't ready. 

Not ready to love them because Qasim and Jake had left bruises not quite yet healed. Not ready because her mind told her to step away while her gut told her to step forwards and her heart told her to stay put. She didn't know what to do. 

_I'm in need of a savior (savior), but I'm not asking for favors_   
_My whole life, I've felt like a burden_   
_I think too much, and I hate it_   
_I'm so used to being in the wrong, I'm tired of caring_   
_Loving never gave me a home, so I'll sit here in the silence_

Nick Torres. Handsome, funny, sweet Nick Torres. At first, she was quite convinced that he was going to trip over his own ego and big headedness but he had pretty much proved her wrong. Of course, when they first met she had a gun leveled at his head so she could be proven wrong on almost anything. 

For almost a year they where partners out in the field, her had her six and she had his. He knew his moves because he was easy to predict if you looked at him. His hot-headed attitiude when something pissed him off or didn't feel right. He was easy to read, to her at least. She wasn't so sure if anyone else could. 

That kiss while undercover, Luis and Charlie, had been brief, it had been her intention to catch him slightly off guard. But the kiss had unintentionally sparked something that she didn't know could happen. Sure Nick was attractive and some what sweet under his hard exterior, but she saw more of it since that kiss. But she couldn't go down those roads again. No. 

She refused to let the shield around her heart down. Not yet. Too soon since Qasim. Too damn soon. 

But they grew closer, Nick became her best friend, cracked jokes, witty banter, brought her coffee in the morning(they took turns but she pretended that it was out of pure thought) and genuinely made her feel better. But they where friends, partners, nothing else and nothing more. 

"You're like a sister to me." 

The words repeated themselves over and over again her head. It was a stab to everything. Heart, mind, gut. All of it because it was painful. 

If they where best friends, and partners, why did the words hurt her so much? Why where they so damn painful? 

_I found peace in your violence_   
_Can't tell me there's no point in trying_   
_I'm at one, and I've been quiet for too long_

So she played it cool for a while. Kept it under her skin. Didn't let those emotions bleed through the surface. She wouldn't. 

But they grew impossibly close. Movies nights and going out to bars, even goat yoga(which made her die with laughter when she went with him and she almost cracked a rib, she hand't laughed like that in years), painting and all of this other stuff, until she knew him like the back of her hand. She knew that he hated brocolli unless it had cheese melted on it and that he secretly craved to watch romance movies. She knew him better than anyone. 

Damn her. Damn her for getting close because those words(replayed a hundred thousand times in the caverns of her brain) where so painfully hot. 

Damn her. 

Damn her. 

But one day those words would bubble back out of her throat and she'd spit them out onto his shoes and in his face. 

_I'm so used to sharing_   
_Love only left me alone_

And one night, they sit close together on the couch when he leans over, somewhat not sober, but not drunk. Somewhere in the blurred lines. 

He kissed her. She didn't quite register it at first, but his lips on hers, soft and yet searching for something. 

Damn her. 

She couldn't close again. 

"Love you Ellie." He whispered and kissed her again. 

No. 

No. 

No. 

Her heart wouldn't allow this. No. 

No please. 

She couldn't. 

She pulled away and stood, anger seeping into her chest because it would be easy to just kiss him and repeat those words. She was stuck in the never ending silence that drowned her heart. Nick was confused, his features pinched in concern and sudden alarmed. 

"You're like a sister to me." She repeated, the words falling from her lips, her voice poison. 

Nick's face fell. 

"Ellie I-" 

"No." She cuts him off, her glare growing dangerous. Her heart is tired of this dance. Of all of it. 

"You're like a sister to me." She spits, her heart is burning now. Burning with rage from everyone before her. Grabbing her things she leaves, driving far away, turning up the radio so she won't hear the sobs she chokes out. 

Everything hurts. 

She's drowned and no-one realized until it was too late. 

_But I'm at one with the silence_


	3. Someone for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone to you  
> -Banners  
> SEQUEL TO STUCK IN THE SILENCE

_I don't wanna die or fade away_  
_I just wanna be someone_

Nick stands there, watching her leave in the old beat up pickup she drives, the blasted thing that's been driven to hell and back, a safety risk in the dead of winter and that damn stubborn girl still drives it like it's brand new. He hates her truck because one day she'll be stuck beside a busy road with paper strewn across the asphalt and a dead phone. 

He stands there because he has little idea of what to do. 

He hates himself for saying those words. Scaring her. Making her angry. Saying she was like a sister to him. That was wrong. That was a desperate lie because he had no idea of what to say in the moment because saying _"I wanna break rule 12"_ just seemed wrong because even if everyone was gone it felt like they where all watching with big wide eyes and even bigger grins. 

Nick hates himself. 

_Dive and disappear without a trace  
I just wanna be someone_

Without knowing or thinking, a steady right hook goes soaring into the wall, breaking through thick plaster and drywall. A ring of pain shocks his skin and bone, but he's so damn angry that he doesn't quite register it's happen until he's pulling his right fist from the wall, covered in cuts and blood, chunks of drywall falling to the hardwood floor. 

"Damn it Torres." He scolds himself silently and starts running cold, burning water from the sink over the hand. He winces but doesn't mind, the stabbing pain in his chest worse than the physical wound that can heal. 

He's messed up big time. How is he ever going to make it up to her? He shouldn't have kissed her. Shouldn't have had that second beer, even if he wasn't drunk, he was leaning towards somewhat tipsy, the scales of drunk and sober not quite balanced. Nick's an idiot and he knows it. He should have never cracked open a beer at all, espiscally in her vincinity.

They ca't ever go back to before. Not the morning witty banter, the movie nights or the sweet gestures of getting each other breakfast or coffees after long cases and rough nights. 

He doesn't know if that's a good thing or bad a thing. 

_Well, doesn't everyone?  
And if you feel the great dividing_

Wrapping his hand in a soft white bandage he sits back on the couch, pushing his beer on the glass coffee table further from him so the stench isn't as terrible. Ten minutes ago they where watching some cheesy romance movie and he was enjoying it because she was smelling like lemons and warm coffee with sugar and spice. Ten minutes ago they where friends. Ten minutes ago he didn't royally screw up. 

Nick wasn't sure that this would end well. His feelings for Ellie had been bubbling up for the past months. She wasn't his type. He had said that before. He had also said she was like a sister to him(a lie) and then agreed with Jimmy about the no chemistry thing(another fantastically stupid lie). That was sort of true, that she was't his type. 

Nick liked girls that he could forget about. Girls that danced on tables and leaned over dramatically when dropping something on purpose. He had never dated sweet girls who where odd and weird, with flaws and imperfections. He had never fell in love with girls that made his heart stop, like actually stop. Nick liked casual dating, no strings attached(it was his undercover days, he had built it in him that there could be nothing more than simply casual). 

But Bishop? She wasn't casual. She had been married once, engaged before, all of these things he's never done. 

She was the kind of girl that didn't do casual. She was the kind of girl you married. 

_I wanna be the one you're guiding_  
_'Cause I believe that you could lead the way_

He wants to run after her. She left almost ten minutes ago, it takes a little more than that to get from his place to hers. Maybe he can get there before she cries herself to sleep or decides to cut him from her life forever.

Or maybe he's too late. He know's Ellie like the back of his hand. He knows that she feels something for him because this wasn't one sided. It couldn't be. 

But he also know's that she's afraid. Afraid because she thinks he'll be another Jake, another Qasim, or Boyd or Richard or any of the other failed relationships she's had. Ellie didn't really have much luck(She had told him so a thousand different times). 

How can he ever convince her that he would never hurt her. Nick wouldn't do a single thing in the entire world that would hurt her. Yet he already had, unintentionally of course. He shouldn't have said those things. 

"you're a sister to me" 

Yeah right. What an fool he was. 

Another ten minutes passes. 

He's really unsure of what to do. McGee, Gibbs, hell even Jimmy would know what to do because they had experience with love like this. Nick however, had not. He's never really loved a girl(unless you count Sofia, but he had gotten over her a long time ago, because he knew there wasn't much point in still groveling.) 

Nick's never really loved a girl until he met Eleanor Bishop. With all of her perfect imperfections, those flaws, quirks and funny remarks she makes(she think's they're funny but they're not). 

He's never really had a heartbeat like this until he's been in a five foot radius of her beauty and her amazingness. 

Because she's the jumper cables to his dead heart. 

_I wanna be somebody to someone, oh  
I never had nobody and no road home_

He finds himself in his Jeep driving, it's raining cats and dogs out, thick, wet drops of rain rolling down his windshield, his wipers desperately trying to clean off the glass. Soft tunes are playing in the background but his mind is in a thousand different places that he can't even decipher what kind of music is even playing, only knowing that he hates it a lot and wants to smash the radio with the heel of his foot. 

Nick has no choice as the rain and darkness thickens around him, he pushes on. He has to get to her before she slips off the edge and slices him from her amazing life. 

The rain reminds him of the cheesy romance movie they where watching. Where the guy runs out into the rain, chasing after the girl he loves. But this situation couldn't be more than different. This was real life. That was a cheesy movie where the guy and girl ended up together and there could be a chance that this wouldn't end like some kind of movie. 

This had to end well. 

It had to. 

_And if the sun starts setting, the sky goes cold  
Then if the clouds get heavy and start to fall_

Stopping outside of her little townhouse(he is almost sure that she wants to move because this is the house that she had with Jake beforehand) and gets out, running to her front door as the rain soaks through his leather jacket. Pausing for a second, he thinks this over. Should he be doing this? Throwing oil at the growing fire? That could mean it would explode in a deadly, untameable way. 

But he knocks, three sharp, loud times so that she had to hear it, through whatever sappy love song she has playing in her house, he knows that she drowns in her sorrows and sadness in music and art. 

She probably will ignore him, not answer because she is all pissed at him. Ellie could answer, with a frown or a shout. A frown sounded better than a shout. 

Ellie does answer. Dressed in an old pair of sweats and a sweatshirt that he thinks might be his but he can't tell in the faint light, her hair done up in a messy bun, wearing fuzzy socks and a tears tracking down her face that have clearly been wiped off. 

"What do you want?" She stiffens, her voice guarded and angry. 

"Just to talk, can I do that?" His hands go up in surrender, hoping that she won't think he's here to make her feel worse. 

"Fine, you have five minutes." She steps back, letting him into the warmth of her house that invites him in, the aroma of takeout and chicken making a soft smile turn at the corner of his lips. He has to remind himself this isn't a warm visit. 

_I really need somebody to call my own  
I wanna be somebody to someone_

"Talk." Ellie says a moment after closing the door, leaning on it, wiping at her eyes and straigthening herself out so that she doesn't look like she's hurt. How could he have done this to her? Made her cry? Made her hate him. 

The words seem to spill from his lips, he can't reel them in. 

"I never meant it, none of it. You're nothing like a sister to me." 

Ellie raises her eyebrows. "You sure? Sounded like you meant it." She bites, her voice sharp, deadly as wielding a knife. 

He sighs. "I never meant it El, I just...I just." The words die in his throat. 

"You're just overprotective? That's It?" She crosses her arms over her chest, eyes glued to him. Nick nods, not knowing what else to say to this. 

"Does overprotective mean I can't date any guy without you getting jealous? But then the moment, the moment that I want to go get some drinks, you're off with a girl hanging off your arm. Because I'm not allowed to date a guy unless it's you, am I right?" 

When he doesn't respond she bites again. "Am I right?" 

He is still silent. The truth stabs him in the face. He has been an overprotective, selfish jerk, not thinking about her thoughts or feelings at all. 

"I'm-" 

"No." She slices him off. "You're not sorry. If you where sorry then I can I go out with a guy I've been talking to? The one that I've put off for weeks because I was hung up on you?" 

Hung up on him? 

It made it sound like she was trying to get over him and wasn't working well. 

"Ellie, I really, really am sorry. I know I've hurt you...please, please forgive me?" He pleads.

She shrugs. "You mean the words back at my apartment or was that some sort of lie too?' 

_I don't even need to change the world (change, change the world)_  
_I'll make the moon shine just for your view_  
_I'll make the starlight circle the room (circle the room)_  
_And if you feel like night is falling_  
_I wanna be the one you're calling_  
_'Cause I believe that you could lead the way_

"No, that was true." He whispers and her whole demeanor changes, like the words have effected her physically, her posture isn't as stiff and her features not as hostile. 

"I love you Ellie." The word bubble and pop from his mouth. "I've loved you for a long, long time and I'm sorry it has to come out like this, but I love all of you." He admits. A heavy weight, one that has weighed on his chest for too long and when it's released, he can really see her. All of those perfect imperfections. 

He walks to her, he can smell the takeout on her, the chicken and sauce, her lemony facewash. And he kisses her. He's had plenty of first kisses before, with so many different woman, but this kiss, it's like his whole body can feel it. Raging with a burning fire that he can't quell, fueled by the pent up tension of the past few years. Filled with everything in his heart, soul and well. everything. 

She's everything, all of it. 

_The kingdom come, the rise, the fall_  
The setting sun above it all  
I just wanna be somebody to you


End file.
